Parish Garner was born in Stafford County, Virginia in an area that later became Fauquier County. He married Margaret Sturdy, daughter of Robert and Elizabeth Sturdy, on January 2, 1742, according to the Overwharton Parish Register. It seems that for many years, Parish and Charles shared the land they inherited from their father without heed to boundaries, but on March 20, 175?, they requested a survey and subdivision into two 400-acre plots.

In May of 1764, Parish and Margaret Garner sold their 400 acres to Thomas Helm and moved to Orange County, North Carolina, to a site about 18 miles from Hillsboro, the county seat. It is possible that they lived for a while in Southside Virginia, probably in Prince Edward County, because Parish's son, Sturdy Garner, claims in his application for a Revolutionary War pension that he "went home " to join the army his third term of service, mustering at Prince Edward Courthouse. There was a Garner family living in nearby Pittsylvania County in l767; a Thomas and a James were listed as tithables in that year. During Parish and Margaret's residence near Hillsboro, they owned around 400 acres on "Reedy Fork of Haw River." It is assumed that Parish Garner died some time between 1790 and 1800, since he is enumerated in the 1790 census but not in 1800.

It is claimed that Parish Garner was one of the Regulators, a radical group of North Carolina Colonists who rebelled against England's oppressive trade and taxation policies as early as 1770 in the Battle of Alamance.